Most conventional conveyor belts have heretofore been made of such materials as leather, cloth, rubber or metal, e.g., stainless steel.
However, conveyor belts made as of leather, cloth, or rubber are susceptible to undesirably high rate of abrasion wear and unable in the least to be employed at high temperature conditions,
On the other hand it is possible that metallic belts may be used at a temperature up to 1150.degree. C., but at temperatures higher than 1000.degree. C., care should be given to the provision for prevention of oxidization of the metal material. In addition, not only their strength is greatly reduced, but also the rate of elongation at high temperatures is increased to an extent that their mechanical deformation or abrasion cannot be negligible.
Additional problems with metallic belts are that they are less resistant to chemicals such as acids and alkalis, inferior in chemical stability, and apt to rust.
In an attempt to overcome the aforesaid problems with the conventional conveyor belts, researches have been conducted to develop ceramic conveyor belts, and various patent applications have been made. For example, JP-A-62- 93108 (laid open for public inspection) discloses a ceramic conveyor belt comprising an endless array of ceramic links connected with each other at their front and rear ends. Each one of adjacent ceramic link is provided with a mating groove at a first end opposing a second end of the adjacent other link, said groove being open along the end edge and of an arcuate shape in cross-section having a diameter larger than the width of the opening, while the other link is provided with a mating columnar bead portion at the second end opposing the first end of the one link, said bead portion being fitted in the associated groove so that the adjacent links are interconnected pivotably relative to each other in a thickness-wise direction.
JP-A-62-153011 (laid open for public inspection) discloses another type of ceramic conveyor belt comprising ceramic link plates connected with each other by means of ceramic rollers and ceramic long joint shafts extending through the rollers, wherein a ceramic transverse split pin is inserted in a pin hole provided through each of the ceramic joint shafts adjacent one end thereof to prevent axial withdrawal of the associated joint shaft from the rollers.
It has been found that the ceramic conveyor belt disclosed in JP-A-62-93108 has a problem with respect to the strength, especially at the grooves under conditions of high temperature. Particularly, there is a problem in reliability in operation because tensile stresses are concentrated on the grooves at all times during the operation of the belt.
In addition, especially in the case of a belt having an increased width, it is not easy to replace individual belt elements. Should one or more belt parts located in the middle of the belt fail, for example, it would be required to disassemble substantially all of the belt parts one by one from the end of the conveyor belt before the damaged parts could be replaced. It is thus quite troublesome to repair the belt.
The ceramic conveyor belt disclosed in JP-A-62-153011 is likely to fail because of the long joint shafts and split pins being used. It is again not easy to replace the parts such as the link plates.